Maksim Marveet

Maksim had the misfortune to be the firstborn child of Scion and Irina Marveet. He was born, his parents were married, and they were subsequently divorced by the time Maksim was two years old. It was 2008, and Moscow was a very different place at the time. Scion was in his 30s, working tirelessly in a cut-throat industry. Irina a 25-year-old model. His father ruthlessly climbed the ladder in a steel industry heavily regulated by the Russian government. Scion himself was a child during the most tense times of Cold War USSR culture. He clawed and climbed his way from factory worker to positions of greater prosperity on the dangerous ladder that was post-Soviet Russia in the 90’s. By the time he was wealthy and powerful enough to attract the attention of someone like Irina, he was still fighting a daily battle to keep his power in his vice-like grip.

The formative years of Maksim’s life took place while the world changed around him – most notably in Moscow. Maksim was 15 years old when President Brandon reformed Russia into the ASU, a structure that ultimately propelled his father to even higher, albeit even more dangerous heights. Scion pulled young Maksim along behind him.

Scion had high hopes for a son nurtured through prosperity, wealth and atmosphere far friendlier to family life than the Cold War era that he survived. By the time Maksim was entering university, the CCD was a world-power and the Marveets were a force to be reckoned with in Moscow, but the bygone era of Cold War ruthlessness was fading to the previous generation. Therefore, it was a strange world that Maksim straddled with one foot on each side of the fence: the ruthless notoriety of the past looming from his father’s expectations and the optimistic prosperity of the future beckoning careless frivolity from his peers. Maksim was doomed to not quite fit in either.

Scion expected his son to follow neatly in his footsteps; he laid the path and all Maksim had to do was walk it. Pretty simple. It started well. Maksim was a good kid, generally smart and well-behaved. He wasn’t coddled. Spoiled perhaps, but not to the point of psychological damage many of his peers were. He was popular, fun, and affable. As a boy, his mother put him through traditional Russian ballet training, and Maksim was a natural with performing. He also played piano and violin, but of it all, he loved to sing the most. His vintage-style voice brought tears to the eyes of his audiences.

In university he scoffed at the more rigorous disciplines of study that might set him up nicely to someday take over Scion’s businesses. He had no natural talent for engineering or design. He was not interested in law or accounting, areas he considered mundane parts of the business. It took many years before he found a place he could be somewhat content. Sales.

Maksim was handsome, confident, and flashed a smile that melted hearts and scrawled signatures. He was a natural flirt that seemed to charm everyone he met. In fact, for the majority of his 20s, his family assumed he was gay. To their surprise, he had to officially ‘come out’ as straight to convince them otherwise.

Salesmanship and his sexuality aside, he legitimately tried to be the cut-throat closer that Scion required. He was one part of a scarily-effective team that wrapped up skyscrapers after all, but despite all his charm and connections, Maksim struggled to negotiate the basics. The contracts he did close (train tracks, automobiles) were marginally profitable in comparison to the more glamorous deals of city construction and Dominance infrastructure.

Then one day he flat messed up. In an effort to dial up the ruthlessness Scion constantly demanded, he made a bluff that got called. It was 2038, and the high-speed rail project announced by the CCD was a proof of concept that set up the eventual VacTrain intercontinental rail system. Altogether, it was going to be worth trillions, and Maksim’s mistake cost Scion the full market-share. When trillions were on the line, losing half was an astronomical amount of money. Instead, Scion’s steel was only going to supply the Custody-originating side of those tracks. Their North American competitors outbid them to build from the other direction.

Maksim was 30 at the time. A full grown man shaking with fear and begging forgiveness when Scion finally resorted to beating a spine into his son. He never really recovered from the confrontation, though he showed up for work the next day anyway.

Maksim passed the next few years trying to grow the spine he knew he was lacking. He had been a regular high-roller at Nebesa’s Gate for a long time. Alina Vasilieva was an off-again, on-again girlfriend who did not need convincing that he was straight. The first time he saw her was when he elbowed his way on stage, singing lounge-style throwbacks at Empyrean Bar. There was no way she mistook the handsome and rich Maksim for an employee, and when he returned night after night, he sang for her until she was his.

Their 2044 wedding was the biggest event in Moscow that year, hosting more than a thousand guests. Irina alone dropped $10 Million on just flowers. In keeping with appearances, Scion and Irina are publicly proud of their oldest son, who continues to work in sales at the company to this day. His own children have trust-funds to finance after all.

Maksim Marveet is worth about two billion dollars, but that fund is dwindling year after year, spent on family, play, lifestyle and his own ever-darkening gambling holes. The bulk of Scion’s estate will eventually pass to him, but he is poorly positioned to grow it when that time comes. Unless he hurries up and develops that spine, his children’s inheritance will be disappointing in comparison.